Muhammad Ali, center, waves alongside his wife Lonnie Ali, left, and his sister-in-law Marilyn Williams, right, after receiving the Liberty Medal during a ceremony at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia

He claims to have had only one “heart-to-heart” with his dad — when he was 19 at Ali’s 50th birthday. He said: “He told me he was afraid what might happen to him in the afterlife because of some of the things he’d done.

“I told him that whatever had gone on in the past, I still loved him, and his eyes filled with tears.”

Meanwhile Rahman sees Lonnie as a “gold-digger” who reduced him to speaking to Ali on the phone from his dingy two-bed flat in Louisville.

Lonnie even had Rahman arrested after she discovered he had taken possession of Ali’s family home and removed some of the furniture following the death of their mother Odessa.

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Speaking to The Sun in 2013, Rahman said “We’ve all been pushed out.

“The only time I get to see him is at public events. She and her ­family are draining him. It’s so sad. There’s nothing I can do, they’ve blocked us all off.

“Before he got sick he told me, ‘Rahman, I’ve set up a trust fund for you after I die, you get the money.’ But she’s put a stop to it. If he knew what was happening and where I’m living now, he’d be as mad as hell, so angry.

“He’d divorce her. If he saw what was happening with his children, he’d go crazy.”

Muhammad Ali with his third wife Veronica Porsche, who is said to be about to release a documentary about her time with Ali

Rahman, who joined the local boxing league with Ali as a youngster and later became a heavyweight fighter himself, now lives off disability benefits with his church minister wife Caroline.

He said: “I know him better than anyone, I can sense he’s unhappy. I can see it in his eyes.

“I love him, but she stops him from loving anyone.

“I think she married my brother just for the money. She talks to him bad. He doesn’t even get fed properly. The last time

we were together he was so dehydrated. You could tell from his lips.

“His wife Lonnie and her family are draining him and there’s nothing I can do about it. In my opinion, Lonnie’s evil.” He is not alone in his hatred. Ali’s cousin Charlotte Waddell, 69, said in 2014: “I can’t stand to be around her.

“It wouldn’t take me two seconds to spit in her face!”

Another row was sparked on ­Friday by Ali’s daughter Laila, a retired professional boxer.

As her dad’s condition deteriorated, the 38-year-old changed her Facebook profile picture to one of her in a boxing ring holding two belts with proud-looking Ali alongside her. This wounded some of Ali’s other children, as they thought she was portraying herself as a favourite.

One relative who has not been pushed out by Lonnie is 25-year-old Assad Amin, the son she and Ali adopted when he was five.

Assad, who was about to be taken into foster care because a friend of Lonnie’s could not afford to keep him, now studies at an expensive university where he excels at sports.

Lover and a fighter

MUHAMMAD Ali was married four times and was linked with countless women in a private life with more drama than any fight.

When he stayed at London’s Piccadilly Hotel, star-struck women are said to have worn the carpet threadbare as they scrambled to get to his bedroom door.